Its no as fun being the blank slate TF2 player when people are running around in full sets that give them bonuses.

So now you're saying that their model requires people to pay? Even though it's been the same as every F2P model? That's like arguing that League of Legends is unfair because you have to pay in order to get more expensive champions at a faster rate.

F2P players get weapon drops, they can rise as any starting player did when the game was first released, I'm not understanding your "it's no fun" argument.

Also, I'd hardly call them bonuses considering that Valve has built the entire game around balance. I'd only agree that the weapons have gotten stupider and more random, but nothing unbalanced.

Rachmaninov: I offer an honest and heartfelt apology. I attributed words to you that were incorrect, and I recognize that it was an action that both society and I deem as wrong. I hope that you accept this apology, and that we can move past this mistake and can continue to further our understanding of one another and build a bridge towards friendship.

Now, Akalabeth, that is the kind of thing you say when you've made a mistake and own up to it. Are you big enough to try? Hmmmm?

If people's faces tense up and their nostrils flare like they've just smelled a big eggy fart when you say a word, it's officially a dirty word. If you're a gamer, go look in the mirror and say "Microtransaction" aloud and you'll see what I mean.

And how hypocritical of you, to threaten me for using the word "rant" which you take exception to, only to go on to insult me bare-faced.

And you claiming to "know you're not an artist" isn't an insult?See the difference between you and I is that I don't care who you are in the real world. It doesn't matter. I bring in my personal background because it's applicable to the discussion, you bring in opinion and little else. And while I present assumptions about what you think or where you're coming from I don't actually say what you are.

So yes, you do know shit all, because you state a thing as fact, and it's wrong. And you stated that even after I told you I worked in a film-related field.

Maybe if you'd instead said "Do you actually work in a creative field professionally?" you may have gotten a different response.

I'm not going to rise to this pissing contest you're so desperate to start. Perhaps you are an artist after all, but your lack of comprehension of the subject is still apparent. If you think inspiration is something that just comes with trying hard, you're incorrect. Maybe if you had more than 4 months experience drawing shorts, which in no way compares to writing proper full length stories and single projects that would take sevenfold the sum of your experience to make, you'd understand

SIX YEARS working professionally. Have you done anything artistically professionally? I mean, have you been paid industry rates? Yes or no.

It's clear by your assertion that you've worked in an "artistic trade" and yet only have 4 months experience making any actual art, that you're not actually making art yourself anymore. Being an artist's accountant doesn't mean you know anything about art.

It's clear by what you just said that you either didn't read, understand or remember what I posted.

Yes, you're right that was insulting. And if so I apologize.But I will remind you that in both cases you've started it. Maybe if you made less character attacks, and more content-centric posts I wouldn't get heated?

Well I'm sorry you're not feeling optimistic, but I'm afraid I have evidence.

Both the Xbox and the PS3 are insular, only work with proprietary controllers, hard-drives and accessories, almost exclusively manufactured by the respective company. If you want an Xbox made by someone other than Microsoft, tough luck.

The Steam Box, on the other hand, is basically a miniature PC. It comes with Linux, and you can install windows if you want. But the Steam Box can be manufactured by anybody. You could even make one yourself, if you like. In fact, Steam have already funded (that word you like so much) the development of the first Steam Box, and it's not even made by them.

Now, have you actually got an argument, or just more baseless negativity?

As I said, Steam is a divisive piece of programming. If you buy it on steam, you can't play it anywhere else. You can't play it without steam. So now you can explain to me how that's different than PSN or XBL?

It's not adding anything new to the market besides another third locked-market.

And yes that's besides the point but again, I don't credit a store for selling things. A store selling stuff is just people looking to make money from other people's work. I credit people for creating things.

Creating things like the best DD service around, you mean? Well, then you best be giving credit to the Valve people.

Yes, I've said Steam is a store, have I not? It's a good store for those who buy into invasive mandatory clients. Nothing more.

And while doing so by the way Valve has shown a preference for the Source engine, hosting games which are . . alleged terrible while at the same time other great indie games weren't allowed on Steam.

Of the games I've seen Greenlit, none were in the Source engine. They have hosted some real gems, too, like this.

Some games are Greenlit, but haven't got to the front page. But you rag on me for "conspiracy theorist thinking" later in your comment, so I expect you won't be adding a meaning to why they haven't arrived yet, will you?

I'm not talking greenlight. I'm talking Revelations 2012 and Day of the Dinosaurs or whatever that other allegedly mediocre mod was. This according to TB though I've not played them myself.

Rachmaninov:Valve were the beginning of the Call of Duty era, with Counter Strike. And before you repeat what you've already said; Yes, I know Counter Strike wasn't made by them. Yes, I know it was a mod. Yes, I know they only bought the idea. But my point is, Valve have been in the MP-only arena for a long, long time and nothing has changed. And that's not even including Team Fortress, which invented class-based shooters.

Oh and speaking of "riding on the coat tails of someone else's hard work": Counter-Strike is a mod for Half Life. Half Life and the modding tools used to create Counter-Strike were made by Valve.

Yes, and so did the people who modded CS get a proportional amount of the sales? Or did they get some little bonus while big ole Gabe raked it in? Here's 5 thousand for your work. Now excuse me while your game sells 1 million in profit.

Rachmaninov:Despite your imaginings, I've never said that everything EA does is bad. Providing capital to developers is a good thing. Doesn't excuse the other evil shit, though.

Yet in other posts you call them Scumbag EA?

Rachmaninov:Thanks for that nugget of irrelevant information. It doesn't matter if she eventually got sick of writing Harry Potter, what matters is that Harry Potter was her great work, her magnus opus. The only reason she was in a press release to tell you she was finally happy to be rid of Harry Potter was because she got famous by writing Harry Potter.

Now, perhaps you could respond to the point?

The point is if you have a great idea for a game, and you want full creative control, either make it yourself or man up to the potential consequences of asking people for money or to buy your studio.

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates. Any players who owned the game when it cost money are automatically "Premium" and don't need to pay anything if they don't want to.

EDIT:

Nopenopenopenopenope. Ignore everything I just said, it's wrong.

The truth is, having a "free" account opposed to a "premium" account puts some restrictions on the account, but it does not stop you from getting random drops. "Free" accounts do not get rare drops, or cosmetic items, though.

Yeah, after you insulted me about 5 or 6 times. Evidently the one right before that actually got to me when you basically said that my life's work wasn't true. Similarly this other jerk belittled months of work. And even after you called me a hypocrit you come out and say that your own, hobbies are worth sevenfold the effort of mine? So what you have 42 years of hobbies? That not including the modding, drawing, creative writing I've done of course.

So please. You have no high ground to stand upon.

And this is perpetually the case in this forums. You can't have a discussion for more than five minutes before someone calling you a troll, labelling your post a rant, or directly insulting you.

In fact if they were to go and outright ban me it would be a benefit.

And as for the what else the guy I've now ignored has posted. None of them are directly insulting anyone except Cliffy B, except hey, I'm not talking to cliffy B. So who cares. You're calling EA a scumbag but they're not a member of the forum either.

Companies cannot get away with such things like revoking legal securities, lopping content out of the final product for resale, microtransactions that are GROSSLY overpriced, and shoddy derivative design unless customers let them.

And they do. Most consumers are perfectly content with it.There's a reason publishers can't just flat out charge the 100-200 dollars (USD) so many AAA games would actually cost for all content. It's easier to get someone to commit to that 100 dollars in chunks than in one lump sum.

That is what microtransactions are: Price hikes split up into smaller bits.The fact that publishers have reached the point where a game may flat out require them to cover their costs (remember EA's claim with Dead Space 3?), speaks volumes more about the inefficiencies of the publisher than anything.

----

EA has been a very dirty word to me for years; well before it was "cool" to hate on EA.I stopped doing business with them long ago, and time has proven that to be a wise choice.Until I see sufficient change in EA's business philosophy and practice (ignoring the usual bad press surrounding the company), that policy of mine stands.

----

"Valve can do no wrong"

They've done plenty wrong, but consistently more right. CliffyB does a great job ignoring that in his rant.

Valve gives the player communities the ability to get more involved with their games other than just shelling out more money. Rather than keeping everyone behind a legal glass-wall and employing that "look but don't touch" attitude every other publisher adopts (which they adopt to keep user created content and mods from competing with their DLC, mostly).

For the most part, Steam is a great system, and I do remember its conception; it was not good. At all.But it legitimately has tried to foster trust and develop a consistent service with practical features as it evolved.I would even give Origin a fair shake, if it were not owned and operated by EA.

That said, I do NOT like the Steamworks DRM. It has given me fits before and some rumors I've heard about its usage are unsettling (e.g. if your game uses Steamworks, it cannot use any other DRM. I do not know if this is true).Some people say it's DRM that can be called "humane", and that the alternative is much worse.

And I'll say that's a load of shit.Other DRM isn't the only alternative (did we conveniently forget piracy? The problem that DRM is supposed to solve while constantly failing at it?), it's just the alternative everyone fixates on as a means of justification.

That's like saying it's better to keep the prison rapist in the cell next to yours instead of having him as a bunkmate.In practice, it's tolerable, but it still leaves you feeling uneasy.

But the thing that worries me most about Steam, is that someday, someone is going to "cash in their chips" with Steam, and hold a legal or practical gun to everyone's game library on account of greed or trust (possibly one under the pretense of the other).

In 2009, I only had to validate Steamworks once every 20-25 days to use Offline Mode. Today, it's per-session, meaning if I shut my computer down I have to re-establish a connection to Steam to re-verify (and not even that has been consistent, I once lost verification in the middle of a game when I was out and about with limited to no net access).

The point isn't in the potential inconvenience, it's in the change in attitude; the level of trust.I can only sit here and wonder when that tipping point will come, because to be frank, Steam is a fucking juggernaut in the PC gaming world. They don't need to employ such measures to be highly successful, but Greed by its nature is blind to necessity.

Yeah, after you insulted me about 5 or 6 times. Evidently the one right before that actually got to me when you basically said that my life's work wasn't true. Similarly this other jerk belittled months of work. And even after you called me a hypocrit you come out and say that your own, hobbies are worth sevenfold the effort of mine? So what you have 42 years of hobbies? That not including the modding, drawing, creative writing I've done of course.

So please. You have no high ground to stand upon.

And this is perpetually the case in this forums. You can't have a discussion for more than five minutes before someone calling you a troll, labelling your post a rant, or directly insulting you.

In fact if they were to go and outright ban me it would be a benefit.

And as for the what else the guy I've now ignored has posted. None of them are directly insulting anyone except Cliffy B, except hey, I'm not talking to cliffy B. So who cares. You're calling EA a scumbag but they're not a member of the forum either.

Ha! I'm so glad that the english language already has a word for Akalabeth: Coward

First its "I attack arguments, not people" and now its "Its okay when I attack people because they started it". You have such gall! You're certainly not the best troll (yes, it's an accurate word despite your protests) I've ever seen, but you certainly are the one who is most ignorant of their own actions!

I know it's in there somewhere... some sort of guilt of shame over your actions in this thread. You even commented about the possibility of them banning you (I doubt they will), so you certainly know there is a problem.

And then you go off on this big boring discussion about how you've been in the art world for this very long period of time when what you're doing is nothing at all like what a developer does, it's hilarious! I don't know you're really this big-headed or if you're even an artist, but but it is the funniest thing in the world that you think that it would matter to us.

You've offered nothing of proof as to what you do, whether you hit deadlines, or even create anything of quality. I don't blame you for this, this is an internet forum and it's best to keep personal information off of it lest you gain enemies (which you're clearly trying for). Just don't expect people to give you respect about how you "know everything about deadlines because you're a "professional" artist". Does that make sense to you? At this point you would have to be the entire development team at Pixar to match the amount of qualification you feel you have to be better than other people.

If you ever want to go head to head again, just let me know. Don't expect people to be quiet because you decided that you were going to have a tantrum because things weren't going the way you'd like though.

Have you done anything artistically professionally? I mean, have you been paid industry rates? Yes or no.

Do you care, or don't you?

Do you know what the difference between an artist and a professional artist is? The ability to convince someone to pay you a wage.

If you work in the film industry, you should know that the real artists, the writers, don't get paid a wage. So they're technically not "professional" despite being the pillars that support your careers entire existance. Don't pin so much importance on a wage.

Yes, you're right that was insulting. And if so I apologize.But I will remind you that in both cases you've started it. Maybe if you made less character attacks, and more content-centric posts I wouldn't get heated?

Above you will find my guide for how to write an insincere apology.

Every one of my posts has been content-centric. And I've made very few character attacks. I've called you a liar, when I've noticed you telling what you know to be a half-truth or a complete lie. I've called you a hypocrit, when you tell me I can't do something and then go and do it yourself. I don't think either of those would actually count as a character attack, since each was with evidence.

If you lie, you will be called a liar. If you're hypocritical, you will be called a hypocrit.

I never said it was different to PSN or XBL, although I can say it doesn't require a subscription like the latter does.

I said that The Steam Box is less divisive because anyone can make the hardware and the peripherals and the operating system. That is not true of Microsoft or Sony's offerings. But I said this already, I shouldn't have to say it again. Please stop making me repeat myself.

I didn't give Valve credit for Counter-Strike, I won't reiterate what I said, since I decided to leave the quote above for you to re-read.

Valve gave Counter-Strike a push, by hiring the team, giving them support. It'd be nothing but conjecture to guess at whether or not CS would have been as successful if not for the support of Valve,

Counter-Strike wouldn't have "sold" a single unit without Valve, because it was a mod. Valve did the heavy lifting, making Half Life and the modding tools that were used to create Counter-Strike. The fact that those guys made any money at all is proof of benevolence by Valve, because they couldn't have legally sold Counter-Strike without Valve. So Valve employed them, and one of the two people is still employed (reading the other's wikipedia page seems he left of his own volition).

The point is if you have a great idea for a game, and you want full creative control, either make it yourself or man up to the potential consequences of asking people for money or to buy your studio.

Not every writer is a CEO, you know that right? Some people are part of a studio when their magnus opus gets taken away from them by someone else selling the studio. Then the consequences aren't your choice to risk, it was thrust upon you. And when someone sells a studio, for the new owners to deprive all of those developers of their work, possibly even irreplaceable work, because the new owners made some bad business calls, is not okay.

The point, you don't work on an artistic trade. Do you?Neither does Rachiman or whatever his alias is.

And yet you have the audacity to claim that you have a better understanding than I do? Get lost.

Hell have you even modded a game? Created new models, new levels, new missions? I have. So my knowledge of "game design" is probably more advanced than yours as well.

Just because you doodle in your sketchbook doesn't make you an artist.Plinking around on an instrument a few hours, or writing a song, doesn't make you an artist.Writing a short story now and again, doesn't make you an artist.

What makes you an artist is working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

And until any of you are in that position none of you know a damned thing about the creative entertainment industry.

So, there is evidence of you making claims about things you know nothing about, which is just a different way of saying what I already said.

No. After I pointed out that you were lying, and being hypocritical about 5 or 6 times. There's a difference. Telling me that I "know shit all" is an insult. Calling you a liar, when you're lying, and I have evidence; that is not an insult.

And even after you called me a hypocrit you come out and say that your own, hobbies are worth sevenfold the effort of mine?

That's not what I said. Please, I am honestly pleading to you, stop adding meaning on top of the words I write.

What I said

Maybe if you had more than 4 months experience drawing shorts, which in no way compares to writing proper full length stories and single projects that would take sevenfold the sum of your experience to make, you'd understand.

The clarification: You mention 4 months actually creating shorts. I tell you that in no way compares to writing full length stories and single projects that would take sevenfold the sum of your experience to make (7 x 4 months, since that's what you cited as your experience personally creating art, rather than the vague, nebulous "working in the art industry" you've been talking about).

What I didn't say: "My hobbies are worth sevenfold the effort of yours!"

So, please. Stop it. You are derailing this conversation, by making me clarify my each and every word.

No. After I pointed out that you were lying, and being hypocritical about 5 or 6 times. There's a difference. Telling me that I "know shit all" is an insult. Calling you a liar, when you're lying, and I have evidence; that is not an insult.

Second lesson:

Do you know what "you know shit all" means? It means what you're saying is untrue. So how is that different than you calling me a liar? Here's a hint, it's not different except I'm being more creative.

Either way, as for personal attacks. Claiming that a person has 'no idea of reality' is an insult.

Particularly when you are claiming they have no idea of what it's like working in a deadline-orientated, creative industry when in fact that person does exactly that. Especially when on top of the fact that you, yourself, do not evidently work in such an industry despite some apparent underlying ambitions.

Either way. As I said, I've wasted enough time. Like nearly every discussion this devolves into the other side missing the underlying issue and instead trying to win little points here and there. Point in case:

If you work in the film industry, you should know that the real artists, the writers, don't get paid a wage. So they're technically not "professional" despite being the pillars that support your careers entire existance. Don't pin so much importance on a wage.

So now when I ask you if you've been paid professionally you try to weasel out of it with a technicality. You introduce the word "wage" as if I had said that in the first. I asked if you'd been paid or not, now suddenly "oh writers don't get paid wages per se, so like, I win the argument right?"

And SIMULTANEOUSLY you go and insult EVERY PERSON in the industry who is a not a writer by implying they're not "real artists". What are they? Fake artists? Maybe you should quit writing stories in your spare time and try getting paid for it if you have such a lofty idea of your craft's importance. Or like the people who don't have the courage to leave shit jobs for better ones, do you likewise not have the courage to pursue your own ambitions?

OR . . . speaking of arguing the little points.

Like claiming that Steam will revolutionize the console market by doing the same thing everyone else is doing, just with a "little computer". When in fact anyone anywhere in the world right now can hook up their tower to their TV to accomplish exactly the same thing. Problem is that doesn't appeal to console gamers, so now to get their piece of pie from the console market Steam's bring their store there as well. It is a revolution, but not in the sense of an uprising and overthrow of the old world order, it's a revolution in that the wheel is simply turning and here comes another side to same old formula.

That is because the question was rhetorical, and you turned it into a claim that the answer to the question was no.

A question would have looked like this "Do you work on an artistic trade?" instead of "You don't work on an artistic trade. Do you? Neither does the other guy." which is paraphrasing what you actually said.

I can't believe that you're trying to wriggle your way out of this. You made a bunch of baseless claims, and you know you did. That whole block of text I quoted was written as an attack on our qualifications. There wasn't a single genuine question there, because with the very next lines, you assumed the answer was no.

You must think I know nothing about English, to think you could pull the wool over my eyes so easily. Because that is what you are doing. You are lying, on purpose. Offering a twisted perspective on your mistake in the hopes of not having to apologise.

Particularly when you are claiming they have no idea of what it's like working in a deadline-orientated, creative industry when in fact that person does exactly that.

I claimed you had no idea of what it's like making full length stories and video games. And you don't, by your own admission. You said you work in the film industry, and that you have experience drawing shorts, neither of which are comparable to video games. (Read; comparable to. I'm not saying your hobbies are worse, I'm saying you can't compare them)

Especially when on top of the fact that you, yourself, do not evidently work in such an industry despite some apparent underlying ambitions.

You know where I said "You're making these claims when you really don't have any idea what the reality is." and you said you don't...

Well you just did, right there. You claim I "evidently" "do not work in such an industry despite some apparent underlying ambitions". You have no idea if I work in such an industry or not, and this is exactly the kind of claim-making that you so sarcastically claimed not to be doing, a minute ago.

Except it's not the same. The Steam Box is designed to be simple, so that it behaves more like a console and less like a PC. It has more in common with a "PS4 that runs Linux, plays Steam games and can be manufactured by anybody, with a wide range of hardware" than it does with a PC.

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates.

That's not what it says on their site or the wiki, and I can't find anything to back that up.

It says F2P players can get weapons and crates, just no cosmetic items or anything rare. It would defeat the purpose of their F2P model if the free players couldn't get the weapons through in-game means.

Raminov or whatever your alias is. You don't have arguments. You have technical side steps

You don't actually RESPOND to what I'm saying. You don't SEE the real issue behind things. Is English my first language? Fuck man, is it yours? Seriously.

I ask if you if you've been paid for writing and then rather then respond you introduce some irrelevant technicality that avoids the initial question. Have YOU BEEN PUBLISHED? Scripts purchased? Etcetera.

I tell you I've worked for 6 years in a creative industry and you waive it away as meaningless because you know, "it's not video games" and no I'm not going to say what I worked on, I do not represent those companies or those projects on this forum.

And what, do you work in a creative industry? Or not. There's a difference between a baseless CLAIM and a claim based on observation. You write short stories in your spare time, but you avoided saying you got paid for it. So you probably don't. You mention that you know students who know unemployed designers, but you don't know the game people personally so you obviously don't work in games (or you met them through the other friends, one or the other). Do you work in film? Animation? Anything creative? I doubt it.

So you claim that I don't have any idea of what reality is (in video games) and what, you do? You don't work in games. That's clear. So you question my understanding yet offer no support for your own?

They're not baseless claims they're claims based on observation and if they were false you should refute them instead of just pointing them out in some meaningless attempt to win a brownie point? The fact that you don't refute them means they're probably true and if they're not true I don't really give a shit because you've never said anything to the contrary. You're not even having a discussion, you're evading a discussion by continually introducing things that aren't relevant to the original point.

Case in point:The Steam Box isn't to fix the stagnation of video games, but it will crack open the console market, to bring Steam (along with Greenlight) to a wider range of people, and hopefully put an end to the deliberately divisive tactics used by Microsoft and Sony (proprietary everything).

To which I responded "Steam is a closed system" effectively. And to which you responded 'oh I was only talking about hardware'.

But a closed system, such as Steam is "deliberately divisive" in SPADES. That's the very definition so in that regard, the important regard, ie YOUR POINT, it won't put an end to shit. But rather than address the obvious correlation, you avoid it and claim your argument was actually different. And maybe it was actually different, but "cracking open" the console market by doing the same thing everyone else is doing isn't cracking nothing.

And I'm responded to pretty much everything you've said, every argument you've made but time and time again you just avoid my responses and tell me "oh you're just repeating things" without actually addressing what I'm saying. All the while you're so OBVIOUSLY in Valve's camp it's not even funny. "Benevolence"? Valve had the "benevolence" to make money off the CS mod? Fucking hell man. They see something popular, they capitalize on it. That's not benevolence that's self-serving. The fact that the two CS guys got throwed a bone is pretty irrelevant. How much did Valve buy the rights for? How much did they profit on the game as a company? Those are the real telling numbers.

27 MILLION UNITS. Is how many CS have been sold as of 2011. Do you think the modders got even 1% of those profits for the rights?

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates.

That's not what it says on their site or the wiki, and I can't find anything to back that up.

It says F2P players can get weapons and crates, just no cosmetic items or anything rare. It would defeat the purpose of their F2P model if the free players couldn't get the weapons through in-game means.

Actually, I do, and both this post, and any post you care to read would prove you wrong there. I've answered all your questions. I've responded to as many as like twelve individual quotes from your posts individually. I've taken a great deal of care in responding to what you're saying.

I asked not intending offence. I don't think you afforded me the same courtesy.

You couldn't tell the difference between "You're making these claims when you really don't have any idea what the reality is." and "You have no idea of reality." which should be completely obvious to someone who is fluent in English.

I asked, because I was going to apologise for giving you a hard time, if English wasn't your first language. And all you want to do is reflect it back at me, like it's an insult you want to return. That's not polite.

I ask if you if you've been paid for writing and then rather then respond you introduce some irrelevant technicality that avoids the initial question. Have YOU BEEN PUBLISHED? Scripts purchased? Etcetera.

Actually, you told me you don't care, and then asked anyway, so I asked you "Do you care or not?" and you never answered. Go back and read it if you don't believe me. That's what happened.

I followed that question by pointing out how truly arbitrary those questions are.

But since you are fascinated with my qualifications; I have been paid for my work recording and editing music for a few amateur bands, I've been paid for some gigs in a band including supporting a popular band or two, I've written some short stories and two long ones (two-hundred and sixty-one pages for one, two-hundred and nine pages for the other) and turned both of those stories into RPGs. I've not tried to sell any of them yet, because to be honest I don't consider them finished.

And it's arbitrary because you'll never know if the above is true, and you'll never prove whether or not your own claims are true. So it never mattered in the first place, besides apparently to you, because you want to say "HA! YOU'RE NOT QUALIFIED!" rather than actually responding to my arguments. I'm sorry to say, whether or not you consider me "qualified" my arguments still need to be answered. You can't pretend I'm instantly wrong about everything because you're supposedly "in the biz" and I'm not.

And we both know you're not going to front any evidence you're "in the biz", either. Or that you're anything more than someone's assistant, claiming that it makes you knowledgeable about art.

Akalabeth:I tell you I've worked for 6 years in a creative industry and you waive it away as meaningless because you know, "it's not video games" and no I'm not going to say what I worked on, I do not represent those companies or those projects on this forum.

Funny, I honestly didn't read this part before I made my prophecy. Looks like it had already come true. It's a shame, because without evidence, your claim to be "in the biz" is meaningless. I could've lied, and said I was too.

There's a difference between a baseless CLAIM and a claim based on observation.

And your basis for claiming Rogue had no experience, when in fact he did? I've told you already, you're not going to pull the wool over my eyes so easily. You had no observations for evidence I didn't work in the business, since I told you right off of the bat that I've made games. And actually, I said I do know those people, because I do. I got to know them through my friends, but I do know them.

More presumptions. I've made games, spent hundreds of hours doing so. I suppose that doesn't qualify me as "working in games" to you, because I've not taken it as my chosen profession.

Akalabeth:So you question my understanding yet offer no support for your own?

I'm not questioning them, I'm point out that you in fact do not understand. Inspiration to create something prolonged is not something you can force, and through countless examples given to you (and almost entirely ignored) I have proven that.

If I am incorrect, please, go and invent something incredible, because clearly thinking really hard is all that's between you and a great idea. You'd be rich.

But hey, rather than dispute my actual argument better try to find a completely nonsensical (since you claim experience and won't prove it) way to point out that I'm not qualified to make one in the first place, and then just pretend that it wasn't because you just couldn't argue it. Right? Now that was a claim based on observation, because I can see this little trap you're feverishly trying to set up.

Arguing "qualifications" is complete nonsense even if you can prove your "qualifications" but you're not going to, which only compounds the degree of nonsense.

Akalabeth:you're evading a discussion by continually introducing things that aren't relevant to the original point.

Oh, what you mean like you are? Like calling my qualifications into question instead of answering my arguments?

In fact, can you even prove that I'm evading a discussion, beyond that I've been evading this pointless "qualifications" argument? Do you even have a single quote of me evading anything else?

I'm evading this because you're not going to prove what you're telling me, and I'm not going to prove what I'm telling you, making the whole thing pointless.

And I'm responded to pretty much everything you've said, every argument you've made but time and time again you just avoid my responses and tell me "oh you're just repeating things" without actually addressing what I'm saying.

Akalabeth:Yes and if I had asked you in 2010 when Team Fortress 2 was going to be free what would have been your answer? The answer is you wouldn't have an answer. So I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a point by asking an unanswerable question, but you're not.

Also the fact that TF2 became free to play didn't change the fact that millions of people bought it.

You, yourself, made the claim that TF2 and Dead Space 3 were "very similar" situations. So it is a perfectly fair question to ask.

But since you refuse to give the answer, I'll give it for you: *never*. Dead Space 3 will never be Free-To-Play, ever. That alone illustrates that your original point was entirely wrong. They're not the same situation, they're not the same structure, and not run by the same company. The fact that you even tried to compare the two games illustrates, at least to me, that you've no clue what you're talking about.

Yes, they're both companies, and they both want your money. And they've even used similar methods. But with Valve, it was done at a time when the market was still expanding. They lived and learned and moved on. EA is choosing to ignore the lessons of the past.

To put it into an analogy, Valve stuck its finger in the light socket and promptly resolved not to do that again. EA is in the corner repeatedly stabbing the light socket with a fork, expecting different results.

Akalabeth:Yes and if I had asked you in 2010 when Team Fortress 2 was going to be free what would have been your answer? The answer is you wouldn't have an answer. So I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a point by asking an unanswerable question, but you're not.

Also the fact that TF2 became free to play didn't change the fact that millions of people bought it.

You, yourself, made the claim that TF2 and Dead Space 3 were "very similar" situations. So it is a perfectly fair question to ask.

But since you refuse to give the answer, I'll give it for you: *never*. Dead Space 3 will never be Free-To-Play, ever. That alone illustrates that your original point was entirely wrong. They're not the same situation, they're not the same structure, and not run by the same company. The fact that you even tried to compare the two games illustrates, at least to me, that you've no clue what you're talking about.

It's called Battlefield 1942. It's a game published by EA.It's available for free.

So your answer, no, sorry your "guess", a guess which is not objective but rather self-serving is based on the assumption that EA never releases free games. But that's identifiably not the case, now is it?

So thank you, for your "guess" but it does not change the fact that TF2 and DS3 were both retail games that included MT.

Case in point:The Steam Box isn't to fix the stagnation of video games, but it will crack open the console market, to bring Steam (along with Greenlight) to a wider range of people, and hopefully put an end to the deliberately divisive tactics used by Microsoft and Sony (proprietary everything).

To which I responded "Steam is a closed system" effectively. And to which you responded 'oh I was only talking about hardware'.

Read the quote from me.

"The Steam Box isn't to fix the stagnation of video games"

Then you say it's a closed system to do with games. Clearly not having read that simple line.

I said I was only talking about hardware, because I was only talking about hardware, and right in that quote you quoted, I said I was only talking about hardware.

Honestly. Enlighten me, how can you read me say "It's not about video games" and then tell me I was talking about video games? I said "It's not about video games" because it was about the hardware (and actually the operating system, which I have mentioned. Guess that got ignored).

I just don't understand. You read me say "Not about games" and then tell me I'm side-stepping when you say "BUT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT GAMES" and I tell you I wasn't.

Except I've already explained to you twice how they're not doing the same thing as everyone else only to be ignored.

It's the hardware. If you can't tell, when I was talking about the hardware, it's because I was talking about the hardware.

Have I said hardware enough times yet?

Notice, in that quote you borrowed, I said "(proprietary everything)"? Did you actually read it? All of the hardware for consoles is proprietary. Like I already said

If you want an Xbox made by someone other than Microsoft, tough luck

whereas Steam Boxes can be made upgraded, and altered by anyone. If you want to upgrade a part, you can, and without buying it from Valve. It'll give you freedom to use whatever peripherals you want, whatever operating system you want. If you want to buy a Steam Box made by Microsoft, and play Halo on it, with an Xbox controller and Windows 8 installed, then go right ahead.

That is what I mean by an end to divisive practices. But I've told you this already twice only to be ignored.

It's pretty obvious you don't like Steam. And that's a shame, because Steam is amazing. Yes, it requires you to run it to play the games on it, but it has next to no impact on your CPU while it's running, so you wouldn't even notice. Yes, it will sometimes pop up an advert screen after you finish playing, but that usually only pops up when there's something they genuinely think you'll want, like DLC for a game you own or a fantastic deal on one you don't. And that brings me to another thing about Steam; the sales. No one can even come close to matching it, they offer a massive list of games up to as much as 80% off, even offering some new games for 50% off. Just a few months after it came out, I bought Deus Ex: HR for my best friend because it was £3.74 in the sales. I'm not sure what Steam did to you to make it irrationally hate it, but rest assured that the hate is irrational.

27 MILLION UNITS. Is how many CS have been sold as of 2011. Do you think the modders got even 1% of those profits for the rights?

Do you want to make a prediction, so I can call you a hypocrite for ragging on me for "conspiracy theorist thinking"?

The answer is, neither of us know.

If I paint a picture on the bonnet of your car, and you sell it, you don't have to pay me a dime no matter how nice the picture was. Half Life is Valve's car. Counter-Strike was the pretty picture.

Like I've already explained (but apparently one of the long list of things you ignored) one of the two of them is still employed with Valve. That's more than Valve had to pay him, for making a mod for their game, no matter how successful it was. The modders couldn't have sold a single copy of CS if it wasn't for Valve, so every cent of profit they made was more than they intended to make, and more than Valve had to pay them.

Akalabeth:Yes and if I had asked you in 2010 when Team Fortress 2 was going to be free what would have been your answer? The answer is you wouldn't have an answer. So I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a point by asking an unanswerable question, but you're not.

Also the fact that TF2 became free to play didn't change the fact that millions of people bought it.

You, yourself, made the claim that TF2 and Dead Space 3 were "very similar" situations. So it is a perfectly fair question to ask.

But since you refuse to give the answer, I'll give it for you: *never*. Dead Space 3 will never be Free-To-Play, ever. That alone illustrates that your original point was entirely wrong. They're not the same situation, they're not the same structure, and not run by the same company. The fact that you even tried to compare the two games illustrates, at least to me, that you've no clue what you're talking about.

It's called Battlefield 1942. It's a game published by EA.It's available for free.

So your answer, no, sorry your "guess", a guess which is not objective but rather self-serving is based on the assumption that EA never releases free games. But that's identifiably not the case, now is it?

So thank you, for your "guess" but it does not change the fact that TF2 and DS3 were both retail games that included MT.

I notice you're still avoiding their point.

When with DEAD SPACE THREE be F2P?

Not BF1942, that's always been free.

To my knowledge EA have never turned a game F2P, besides ones that started F2P and failing MMOs. Never have they made a game even remotely like DS3 F2P.

And TF2 didn't include MTs for the first three years, a key difference you're just glossing over.

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates. Any players who owned the game when it cost money are automatically "Premium" and don't need to pay anything if they don't want to.

But that's...not true?

You get just as many weekly drops as any "premium" player. The difference is, until you buy something from the store, you can't trade anything your "free" account has received in drops.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My God, there has been so much hyperbole, vitriol, and misinformation in this thread it's become nauseating. Not to mention some people have been on the warpath in trying to spread the misinformation.

I think we've all lost sight on the point of this thread. I.E. pointing out how utterly ridiculous CliffyB's statements have been lately.

You, yourself, made the claim that TF2 and Dead Space 3 were "very similar" situations. So it is a perfectly fair question to ask.

But since you refuse to give the answer, I'll give it for you: *never*. Dead Space 3 will never be Free-To-Play, ever. That alone illustrates that your original point was entirely wrong. They're not the same situation, they're not the same structure, and not run by the same company. The fact that you even tried to compare the two games illustrates, at least to me, that you've no clue what you're talking about.

It's called Battlefield 1942. It's a game published by EA.It's available for free.

So your answer, no, sorry your "guess", a guess which is not objective but rather self-serving is based on the assumption that EA never releases free games. But that's identifiably not the case, now is it?

So thank you, for your "guess" but it does not change the fact that TF2 and DS3 were both retail games that included MT.

I notice you're still avoiding their point.

When with DEAD SPACE THREE be F2P?

Not BF1942, that's always been free.

To my knowledge EA have never turned a game F2P, besides ones that started F2P and failing MMOs. Never have they made a game even remotely like DS3 F2P.

And TF2 didn't include MTs for the first three years, a key difference you're just glossing over.

I'm not avoiding their point because they don't have a point. They're presenting their opinion that Dead Space 3 will never be free based on what? Their opinion? The fact that Dead Space 3 is EA? Yet EA has released games free to play so the precedence is there and their point, is meaningless even though it was already meaningless.

I'm probably restating, since I didn't read m/any of the comments. But, I agree. This is an industry that exists to make money. Like in movies, there are some that push boundaries and are extremely artistic, but as whole, it's all about the benjamins.

I do hate how sneaky they try to be about microtransactions though. It gets to the point where some games are saying "Give me a dollar and I'll shut up"

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates. Any players who owned the game when it cost money are automatically "Premium" and don't need to pay anything if they don't want to.

But that's...not true?

You get just as many weekly drops as any "premium" player. The difference is, until you buy something from the store, you can't trade anything your "free" account has received in drops.

Yeah, sorry, I was wrong. Someone else already mentioned it. In fact, I'll go back and add a note to make sure I don't confuse anyone else.

My God, there has been so much hyperbole, vitriol, and misinformation in this thread it's become nauseating. Not to mention some people have been on the warpath in trying to spread the misinformation.

I think we've all lost sight on the point of this thread. I.E. pointing out how utterly ridiculous CliffyB's statements have been lately.

Can we get back on topic please?

I'd like that.

Unfortunately, the problem with me and Akalabeth at the moment seems to be that he won't hear me out unless he thinks I'm qualified to have an opinion in the first place, despite the fact that there's blatantly going to be no evidence given from either side. So I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay on topic with him.

I'm not avoiding their point because they don't have a point. They're presenting their opinion that Dead Space 3 will never be free based on what? Their opinion? The fact that Dead Space 3 is EA? Yet EA has released games free to play so the precedence is there and their point, is meaningless even though it was already meaningless.

EA never turned a game that wasn't originally F2P, into the F2P model besides failing MMOs, though.

Just because a company releases an F2P game, does not mean it is reasonable to expect all of their retail titles to become F2P.

Ruling out failing MMOs and TF2, can you actually think of an example of when that has happened? I can't.

Isn't the fact that besides TF2, it's basically never happened, a good reason to assume that DS3 will not do it?

And I'm responded to pretty much everything you've said, every argument you've made but time and time again you just avoid my responses and tell me "oh you're just repeating things" without actually addressing what I'm saying.

Prove it, if you can. I know you can't.

What, you want all your evasions? I'll start and see how long it gets before I quit:

Team Fortress 2 was released as a retail game like any other. It was available for 60 bucks, full priced game.

Incorrect. It was available in a pack of five games, for 60 bucks. If we divide that equally, that's 12 bucks a piece. Maybe, if EA were selling Dead Space 3 for 12 bucks, you'd be right, but you're not.

English second language my ass.The key word in what I say is "AVAILABLE" for 60 bucks

And then rather than address what I say, you respond as though I'm saying something else and start talking about cost vs whatever. Now the word is AVAILABLE. As in, you cannot play this game at release on say console, unless you pay full price. Yeah sure maybe the value, is 12 dollars, if you're generous and consider old games and half-games to be worth the value of full games, but it's not AVAILABLE for 12 dollars. And no TF2 was not released individually until much later, at least in stores.

That the writer had an aneurysm and forgot all that incredible story-telling they'd painstaking crafted for the last 60 hours of gameplay, or;

That EA pressured them into an unrealistic deadline, resulting in the writing that they had planned being scrapped for something faster?

You know Mass Effect 3 had a different lead writer, right?

Hey, look above at this gem of information you conveniently ignored.

Oh what about this gem you conveniently haven't mentioned:

Before Mass Effect 3's release date was delayed to 2012, numerous gaming websites called the game one of the most anticipated games of 2011,[121][122] with IGN ranking it number one in their "Top 10 Xbox 360 Games of 2011" column.[123] Following the 2011 E3 Convention, IGN nominated the game for Best Role-Playing Game and Most Anticipated Game,[124] and EEDAR called it the most promising retail title of 2011.[125] At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, the game was voted the most anticipated of 2012 by fans.[126] In an interview with Computer and Videogames, BioWare marketing director David Silverman went so far as to call Mass Effect 3 the "best game we've ever made".[127]

So what, Mass Effect 3's release date was pushed back? Three months. And the ending still sucked? Hmmn. Interesting.

So let's see what we have:1. Different lead writer2. Delayed release date (extra time)

So Bioware had a deadline, they couldn't hit, the ending was going to suck then they got another 90 days and with that time, the ending still sucks.

And yet the fault is still EAs? Right.

Anyway, enough of that for now I want to play Skyrim. But a few things first.

Rachmaninov:[Unfortunately, the problem with me and Akalabeth at the moment seems to be that he won't hear me out unless he thinks I'm qualified to have an opinion in the first place, despite the fact that there's blatantly going to be no evidence given from either side. So I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay on topic with him.

Actually you're mistaken again.The problem is not that I believe you need to be qualified, the problem is that you believe that I'm NOT qualified to have any idea of what it's like to work in such an industry, despite the fact that I DO work in such an industry and you don't.

So if you don't work in such an industry, then how can you claim to simultaneously have a grasp of the "reality" of the gaming industry and at the same time say that I don't? And no you've not directly made that claim but you've claimed that I do not and without personal experience you have way to determine the legitimacy of my experience. Do you have any basis for such a statement?

EA never turned a game that wasn't originally F2P, into the F2P model besides failing MMOs, though.

Just because a company releases an F2P game, does not mean it is reasonable to expect all of their retail titles to become F2P.

Ruling out failing MMOs and TF2, can you actually think of an example of when that has happened? I can't.

Isn't the fact that besides TF2, it's basically never happened, a good reason to assume that DS3 will not do it?

Yes and no Retail-priced game has included optional MT at launch has it?You claim there's no precedence, but no precedence doesn't prove anything. It's simply your guess based on the facts, vs my guess based on the facts, but both guesses are just guesses.

The fact is, both TF2 and DS3 were initially AVAILABLE at full retail price.

The fact is, that both games have included micro transactions while still being sold.

Now you can present theories to try and create differences, you can talk about value, talk about the psychology of this and that, talk about free DLC or useless optional DLC, but those two points above are irrefutable and no amount of "if this" and "maybe" will change that.

Team Fortress 2 was released as a retail game like any other. It was available for 60 bucks, full priced game.

Incorrect. It was available in a pack of five games, for 60 bucks. If we divide that equally, that's 12 bucks a piece. Maybe, if EA were selling Dead Space 3 for 12 bucks, you'd be right, but you're not.

English second language my ass.The key word in what I say is "AVAILABLE" for 60 bucks

This isn't an evasion, it's an answer. Might be an answer you didn't like, but it's still an answer.

And I emboldened part of your original post "full priced game". In what universe is a game which comes with 4 other games/episodics/whatever-term-you-find-acceptable-remember-that-conversation considered full priced?

Even if you don't accept my logic of evenly dividing the prices, you can't say $60 for one game and $60 for The Orange Box is equal. So it's not a full priced game. So my point stands, and is not an evasion.

Yes, a different lead writer. Rest of the team was the same. Meaning little should have changed. Does a new lead writer immediately turn the rest into morons? And only for the last tiny segment of the game?

Even if you look at ME3, it was still brilliant up until the end. Sure, it was different. Sure, the story had a bit of a different feel. But was it shit? No. Was the ending? Yes.

So what, Mass Effect 3's release date was pushed back? Three months. And the ending still sucked? Hmmn. Interesting.

So let's see what we have:1. Different lead writer2. Delayed release date (extra time)

So Bioware had a deadline, they couldn't hit, the ending was going to suck then they got another 90 days and with that time, the ending still sucks.

And yet the fault is still EAs? Right.

Who says the deadline was extended to work on the ending? What if the deadline was extended to shoehorn in the MT system? You don't know any better than I do, on that subject.

And yes, the game was delayed once, probably because in some way or another it was actually unfinished. And then they used those 90 days to rush what they hadn't yet completed?

We're both guessing here. And I'm the only one blaming both sides. Why is it you're so keen to make sure that despite the fact it could have been EA's fault - and you haven't proven it couldn't - that you're so keen to make sure EA gets none of the blame? Not even a little bit?

Akalabeth:you believe that I'm NOT qualified to have any idea of what it's like to work in such an industry, despite the fact that I DO work in such an industry and you don't.

This has nothing to do with you not being qualified, but rather you showing a total lack of understanding of the difficulties of undertaking a project like making a game.

I don't care what your qualifications are; it's clear you still don't understand.

I've already told you: If I'm wrong, and thinking really hard is all you need to come up with a good idea, go invent something incredible and become rich.

You can't, and you know you can't, and that's the third time I've said it without so much as a single response the first two times. You must know it's not that simple, and that is all I've been trying to explain to you, while you got all twisted up with the qualifications nonsense.

Inspiration isn't a case of "thinking really hard", especially for a long project like a game, and since I have made two, that is a subject I know.

You claim there's no precedence, but no precedence doesn't prove anything.

No precedence means there's no good reason to believe something will happen. There is no good reason to believe DS3 will go F2P, and plenty of precedence to believe it won't, like the fact that it's only ever happened once before and that was by a different creator, with a different type of game.

It's called Battlefield 1942. It's a game published by EA.It's available for free.

So your answer, no, sorry your "guess", a guess which is not objective but rather self-serving is based on the assumption that EA never releases free games. But that's identifiably not the case, now is it?

So thank you, for your "guess" but it does not change the fact that TF2 and DS3 were both retail games that included MT.

So your proof that Dead Space 3 will eventually go Free-to-Play....is a completely different game in a completely different franchise?

It's not a "guess", it's a logical conclusion based on the facts. Dead Space 3 cost EA far too much money for them to release it as Free-to-Play. Keep in mind that they said it had to sell 5 million copies to be viable in the market.

So no, you're wrong. Rather than trying desperately to worm your way out of it by pointing to other completely unrelated games, accept it and move on.

What I don't get is why people hate day one Dlc so much think about it its the best place for it how many times have you heard about some dlc for a game though"hu that looks cool I may look into it after I finish these other games Im playing"And then Leave that spesific game to Rot on your shelve or In your trunk or whereever you keep your games

Greed Is a natural byproduct of almost every multi million/billion dollar industry in the world. cutting corners, Charging more for less and not delivering on promises or what advertising and marketing implys. EA is absoultely guilty of this as are many other companies. I find it amusing that CB rips on Steam . yes they are another huge company and yes the service did suck when it launched with halflife all those years ago.. However they stuck to a buisness model that works and no one has come close to touching yet. Ubisoft is slowly learning, I was happy to see Uplay working correctly in offline mode after I had "activated" far cry 3.

As far as trying to justify micro transactions and day one DLC.. Cliffy is just another whiny rich dude wanting more money for less product and trying to justify it by todays economy.What a load of Crap. If the games didnt Make money they wouldnt make them , period. Shame on you .. I wonder, is his next Gig going to be with EA ?

I absolutely Vote with my wallet , and wish more Gamers would as well .

Gameguy20100:What I don't get is why people hate day one Dlc so much think about it its the best place for it how many times have you heard about some dlc for a game though"hu that looks cool I may look into it after I finish these other games Im playing"And then Leave that spesific game to Rot on your shelve or In your trunk or whereever you keep your games

The problem with Day One DLC is this;

If the DLC is complete, and available to be played on the release date why didn't it come with the game?.

And more often than not, Day One DLC is on the disk you already paid for. So you walk into a shop, spend $60 on a game and come home to find that some parts of the disk are locked away, until you pay more.

Day One DLC is like buying a movie, to find out you can only watch the final scene if you pay extra.

It's called Battlefield 1942. It's a game published by EA.It's available for free.

So your answer, no, sorry your "guess", a guess which is not objective but rather self-serving is based on the assumption that EA never releases free games. But that's identifiably not the case, now is it?

So thank you, for your "guess" but it does not change the fact that TF2 and DS3 were both retail games that included MT.

So your proof that Dead Space 3 will eventually go Free-to-Play....is a completely different game in a completely different franchise?

It's not a "guess", it's a logical conclusion based on the facts. Dead Space 3 cost EA far too much money for them to release it as Free-to-Play. Keep in mind that they said it had to sell 5 million copies to be viable in the market.

So no, you're wrong. Rather than trying desperately to worm your way out of it by pointing to other completely unrelated games, accept it and move on.

And your proof is what? Your opinion? Your theory? So I'm supposed accept your opinion as fact? No sorry, I cannot do that. You know why? Because it's YOUR OPINION. Get it?

Gameguy20100:What I don't get is why people hate day one Dlc so much think about it its the best place for it how many times have you heard about some dlc for a game though"hu that looks cool I may look into it after I finish these other games Im playing"And then Leave that spesific game to Rot on your shelve or In your trunk or whereever you keep your games

The problem with Day One DLC is this;

If the DLC is complete, and available to be played on the release date why didn't it come with the game?.

And more often than not, Day One DLC is on the disk you already paid for. So you walk into a shop, spend $60 on a game and come home to find that some parts of the disk are locked away, until you pay more.

Day One DLC is like buying a movie, to find out you can only watch the final scene if you pay extra.

Yea its not perfect and tbh I would sypmpathise with companys If they werent handiling it so poorly a good way to do this would be to simply charge less for a new game lets say for sake of example that Black ops 2 cost £35 Brand new but your have to spend £20 to unlock the Mp Stay with me your still paying £5 less than for a brand new £60 game so you spend less money the developer gets more money Im sure other people can come up with better ideas than me but you see my point right?

Incorrect. It was available in a pack of five games, for 60 bucks. If we divide that equally, that's 12 bucks a piece. Maybe, if EA were selling Dead Space 3 for 12 bucks, you'd be right, but you're not.

English second language my ass.The key word in what I say is "AVAILABLE" for 60 bucks

This isn't an evasion, it's an answer. Might be an answer you didn't like, but it's still an answer.

And I emboldened part of your original post "full priced game". In what universe is a game which comes with 4 other games/episodics/whatever-term-you-find-acceptable-remember-that-conversation considered full priced?

Even if you don't accept my logic of evenly dividing the prices, you can't say $60 for one game and $60 for The Orange Box is equal. So it's not a full priced game. So my point stands, and is not an evasion.

I'm at work so wont respond to everything.But I'm sorry, this IS an evasion. Because you're trying to dispute what I'm saying, by opening up another line of reasoning but you're still NOT disputing what I'm saying.

In order to play Team Fortress 2 at launch, you had to pay full price. This is fact.

Now you can say "well yes that's true, but arguably the value is better because of [reasons]" in which case we start talking about value. But the initial 60 dollar price point is INDISPUTABLE. Not incorrect, indisputable.

See that's evading the point. You're introducing a new point, which does not directly dispute the old point, yet you're claiming that it does even though your really talking about something entirely different.

It's about being specific. The same way you use blanket terms like "5 Games in Orange box" as if the 5 games are equal in value to Deadspace when two of them are old and four of them are not full games. And what's a full game? Look at Valve's own pricing model:

So what you can tell from this, you can tell two things:1. Valve subscribes to the full priced model.2. Valve considers Episode 1 and following to be worth 1/3rd of a full price game

So for the Orange box, at 60 dollars you get at most the equivalent of one Full Priced AAA game and 1.3 OLD Full priced AAA games.

And let's not forget the fact that those users, who were expecting a 20 dollar Episode 2 instead were required to buy a 60 dollar package with A - two games they already had B - two games they may or may not have cared about. The fact that the episodes were later released as a bundle doesn't change the fact that some people may have ended up paying for stuff they didn't want to. That's great value, right? Being forced to buy games you don't want. Just like you're forced to install Steam with any game you buy in order to play it.

Actually, despite my generally disagreeing with him, on this aspect, he is correct.

Since TF2 went F2P, any players who obtain the game free need to make a purchase from the Mann Co store to become "Premium" and begin receiving random drops besides crates.

That's not what it says on their site or the wiki, and I can't find anything to back that up.

It says F2P players can get weapons and crates, just no cosmetic items or anything rare. It would defeat the purpose of their F2P model if the free players couldn't get the weapons through in-game means.

I never said that "Free Players" get no drops. I said that the drops for Free Players happen an extreeeeeeemly lower frequency of those who have bought items or bought the game previous to the F2P Update. Free players get next to no drops until they pay. You could play for hours as a free player and only get one drop in a day of playing TF2, while the "Premium" player has received 3-4 crates and a weapon. And getting weapons is a much more rare occurence even for "Premium" players. So the chances of getting a weapon are extremely low for free players. This I think we all know from playing the game ourselves and just seeing people talking about drops or the lack there of in the chat section.

And that, to en extent, is one of the major reasons I made a point if this when stating my argument on how Valve's business actions with TF2 are in the same vein of aggressiveness as EA's microtransactions. If not more.

Also, coupled with the fact that Free Players get next to no drops, they can't even trade at all until you pay for something. Trading is a massive part of TF2 due to the fact that you will get a lot of items that you don't want/already have. Such is the nature of random drops.

Another point I made is that the items do give an advantage to the premium players, but on a premium player > free player bias. I think we can agree that, as good as a person can be at TF2, a free player's base start off weapons do not do as well as the unlockable ones. Yes, there are unlockable items with drawbacks, but there are quite a bit that don't have drawbacks either.

For all of the reasons above, TF2 sets the incentives for paying, pretty damn high. Dead Space 3, not so much.

Dead Space 3's microtransactions are mostly to make the game easier and not take as much time to beat. Its a pay to win model for a single player game. Yes it's ever so dastardly for EA to implement this, but you can beat the game without having to purchase a damn thing. A lot of the weapons you can buy are just reskins (stat wise) of the weapons you can already get through playing the game, and day one DLC is so common with the big publishers now I can hardly call it a reason to get mad at EA specifically anymore. The day one DLC is unneeded for the enjoyment of the completion of DS3.

My point is that TF2 is in very many ways modeled to take your money in just of an aggressive manner as Dead Space 3. Most free to play MMO's don't kneecap the free experience as harshly as in TF2. So what if Dead Space 3 charges $60 for the game. The game itself for all intensive story line purposes is complete. The microtransactions in DS3 are no ones that the game ABSOLUTELY NEEDED TO INCLUDE. If the story of the game is told completely, there's no NEED to pay any more than the $60. You can completely play and enjoy all of DS3 without the extras. Playing TF2 for free is not as fun without paying money though. Most free to play games are either pay to win or pay for cosmetics. TF2's model is seemingly set so you have to pay to unlock a majority of the game. That alone makes it just as aggressive as EA's MT model.

To my knowledge EA have never turned a game F2P, besides ones that started F2P and failing MMOs. Never have they made a game even remotely like DS3 F2P.

And TF2 didn't include MTs for the first three years, a key difference you're just glossing over.

He's not avoiding their point. This whole post is invalidated by the fact that Battlefield 1942 was a full priced retail game when it came out and went free 10 years later. You just said to your knowledge that EA has never turned a full priced game into a F2P game. Turns out you now have proof stating exactly that.

Yes, a different lead writer. Rest of the team was the same. Meaning little should have changed. Does a new lead writer immediately turn the rest into morons? And only for the last tiny segment of the game?

Even if you look at ME3, it was still brilliant up until the end. Sure, it was different. Sure, the story had a bit of a different feel. But was it shit? No. Was the ending? Yes.

And so if the story is shit that's the fault of . . oh I don't know, the people who WROTE the story?

Seriously do you understand the leap of logic you're making when you blame a bad ending first not on the people who created it, but on the publisher? Like, you're DELIBERATELY ignoring the obvious answer to blame the party you don't like.

Who says the deadline was extended to work on the ending? What if the deadline was extended to shoehorn in the MT system? You don't know any better than I do, on that subject.

And yes, the game was delayed once, probably because in some way or another it was actually unfinished. And then they used those 90 days to rush what they hadn't yet completed?

We're both guessing here. And I'm the only one blaming both sides. Why is it you're so keen to make sure that despite the fact it could have been EA's fault - and you haven't proven it couldn't - that you're so keen to make sure EA gets none of the blame? Not even a little bit?

No you're blaming EA for creative content when in the past you've said they don't deal with creative content. As if a deadline controls what the creative content is going to be. I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all. If you have a deadline, you create an ending that you can accomplish within that deadline. If the ending is crap, and by crap I mean it doesn't hold up the quality of the rest of the game, then it's the fault of people making it. Whether they got extra time to work on or not doesn't matter. It's still their creative content and it's still their fault.